


Lethe

by Melanie_D_Peony



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Everybody Lives, M/M, Melodrama, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Non Consensual Memory Wiping, Not Beta Read, Rough Kissing, Swearing, almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23285179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanie_D_Peony/pseuds/Melanie_D_Peony
Summary: The world hasn't ended. They are both alive. There is just one problem.There's always a price to pay.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan fiction. The author does not own anything,

The man sitting in front of him didn't seem scared.

That was an unusual phenomenon in this place. His eyes did go darting around and while there was a flicker of apprehension in his mannerism, overall he seemed almost _awed_ to be in the Archives. He wrapped his arms around himself, but in a gesture that appeared to be an attempt to keep from reaching out to test the solidity of the things about him, rather than a desperate act of seeking security. 

'You said you wanted to make a statement?' The Archivist asked as the man's eyes returned to him with a passing expression of disbelief, like he was was surprised that Jon was still there.

'Y-yes.' The man admitted. He was a youngish bloke in his late twenties with soft features, a mild voice and a worrisome complexion that spoke of his kindness well before he could do or say anything. He sat, eyeing Jon, as if it was the Archivist who came here for a heart to heart and not the other way round. 

'Regarding?' Jon offered helpfully.

'My dreams, I guess?' Came the hesitant reply. 

_You guess?_ Jon smiled to himself, bemused.

'I see.' He said. 'What are these dreams about?' 

The man recoiled a bit, lips mouthing words mutely, hesitant. He scrunched his face, expression a bit disappointed, like he was letting himself down somehow and he had to tear his eyes away from Jon's before he managed to speak.

'This place. I dream about your Institute. Your Archives to be precise.' He nodded, determined, gaze fixed firmly on his lap. Then he sought out Jon once again, his eyes pleading for understanding, for Jon to believe. 'Your receptionist offered to show me down here, but I declined. I knew exactly where your office was, where to find you, despite never having been here before.'

Jon hummed in agreement. 

'And what happens here, in your dreams?' He urged his visitor on.

'Well, I suppose I should call them nightmares, really.' The young man chuckled without mirth. 'They are always pretty much the same - I walk the Archives until I start to descend in this weird labyrinth of tunnels underneath it all. Details change. Sometimes I go there fleeing something that is chasing after me - I never get to see what, it's always just out of sight, behind the corners, but in my sleep I somehow know that I'll regret letting it catch up with me. Sometimes the terror is in the fact that my limbs carry me further down the dingy maze against my will, despite my command to stop. And, more often than not, I'm consumed by this fear that there is something or someone down in that subterranean lair who is really important for me in a way I can't quite remember or place. In these dreams I get a feeling that this thing or person is in imminent danger and I shall grieve for a long, long time if I don't stop this unknowable catastrophe taking place. And that's where I usually wake up.' 

The man told him all this almost in one breath, shifting grimaces of horror occupying his features, as if he relived each distinct flavour of despair as he spoke. As it was customary around here.

'And did you ever experience anything unusual upon waking? Do you find any changes in your surroundings, marks or dirt on you once you resurface?'

'What? No.' He seemed shocked enough by the possibility to convince Jon, who let out a relieved breath. 

'Well, while this might not be pleasant, as far as strange occurrences go, it sounds harmless enough. You must try your best not to dwell on these dreams and stop them from happening, in case they develop a more… sinister nature. But for the time being, I wouldn't worry too much.' 

'It's not like I control these things!' The young man exclaimed, wringing his hands in a fit of agitation. 'I'm not sure I could, even if I tried. I don't know how to explain any better, but.... These dreams, they feel so _real_ . Not like the normals ones you get, where your brain fills your dreamscape with a hazy approximation of surroundings that makes you sort of accept that, oh, yes I'm in my school's assembly hall and I am being tested on History in my underwear. In these dreams, I can make out the tiniest details, the individual stains on the popcorn ceiling, the dust on the skirting boards and I can almost taste the smell of cheap instant coffee wafting through the air. As I walked in here today I somehow _knew_ how the knots in the concrete walls would feel if I were to touch them. And do you want to know how I figured out where were my dreams taking place? One night, as I wondered the offices in my slumber, I saw a letterhead saying 'The Magnus Institute' in passing. Imagine my shock when I instinctively Googled it in the morning, only to find out that it was an actual place that existed and not even that far away from me. I recognised the building instantly as I set foot in here. It was the background from my strange nightly terrors alright.' 

The disconcerted young man stared up at Jon, almost as if waiting for a challenge, a retribution, for him to say that somehow there was a perfectly normal explanation for all of this.

He stared back in silence.

'You've got to admit that none of this can be natural.' The fellow insisted, drawing his own conclusions from Jon's lack of response. 

'Well, Mr Blackwood, while these dreams do sound paranormal, their power over you isn't too great. I'm sure that soothing teas or other herbal remedies will do the trick for the time being, until we can conduct further research and update you. Maybe try sleeping in a chilled room. Or, I hear that whale sounds can do a lot of good too. In the meantime, please leave your details with Rosie on your way out, so we can contact you for a follow up interview, should the need arise. And… good luck.'

He tried his best to sound calm and nonchalant, voice even, as he made a little gesture of dismissal with his hand and turned back to his monitor, already clicking away on the keyboard. But the man across him refused to move. When Jon finally acknowledged the guy's continued presence he saw the way he paled with shock. 

'How' spluttered the bloke. 'did you know my name?'

_Shit._

'You just introduced yourself.' Jon offered, fighting to keep his composure.

'I most certainly didn't.' He insisted.

'I'm sorry.' The Archivist offered with empathy that felt only the tiniest bit stiff and forced. 'I know how it is. What's happening to you is unsettling. You are overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. But I can assure you, your world will realign itself and return to normal soon enough. Before you know it, you'll be comforted by its familiar mundanity.' 

'Somehow I doubt that.' The man, Martin, suggested. It seemed like he made up his mind about something, because he stood from his seat and started for the door.

Only to pause for a minute before leaving, with his back to Jon, hand wrapped around the doorknob.

'Sometimes,' he said softly, talking into the wood panel. 'I don't wake up trembling and the dream runs its course. Those nights, I wander the maze, getting further and further inside. And when I make it to the middle, the thing that I'm drawn to, running for, running to at the heart of it is… you.'

Martin looked back over his shoulder, his gaze almost schortching. Jon briefly wondered if the power of compelling might not be his alone, because he could barely resist answering the demand he saw in that stare. Instead he pulled his best impression of a calm, disaffected academic, leaning back in his swivel chair, forming a tent with his fingers.

'How interesting. Definitely something noteworthy. As I said, we'll be in touch when we know more. Until then.' He didn't like Martin's disappointed huff, but held it together at the end. His voice only tripped on the last sentence really, sliding onto a realm of tenderness that was far too intimate for two strangers. 'Take care.' 

Only when Martin had left did he allow himself to sigh and run his fingers through his mess of hair. It was tricky business, keeping his distance, his composure, his cool, when he was almost intoxicated by Martin's presence. He needed fierce reminders that this was exactly what he wanted as he forced his body to remain seated, while all of his muscles were yearning to start after the man that had just stormed his office. 

He turned back to his desk. If there was ever going to be a good reminder of what was at stake, the pile of second hand traumas, the ever growing stock of statements was one. He opened one to face a stranger's fresh personal hell. 

* * *

There was, Jon decided, a strange, comforting alchemy to making a cuppa for someone else. Something for the idle hands to do, something to consolidate this feeling of utter uselessness. He couldn't fix things, soothe aches or heal wounds, in fact his talent lay in reopening what has healed over already. But he could fix up a cupful of tea. Something that gave him a purpose at least. His only way of mitigating the damage he always yielded.

Sometimes he forgot the quickness of his step, his stealthy walk of a thief. And some thief he was. When he made a small sound in the back of his throat it caused Martin to jump a little, where he sat on the floor, startled back to reality from the statement on which he was dwelling. There were manila folders spread about him, files opened at random and tapes everywhere, in a circle, like props of a strange ritual. 

'Tea.' Offered Jon meekly.

Martin stared at him with that glare he saw on him before, like he couldn't quite comprehend the presence of Jon. Finally, he rubbed his face and stood, accepting the cooling beverage.

He turned, wildly, to measure Jon up again after the first sip.

'Milk, no sugar?' He asked and the Archivist knew what he was implying. 

'Took a wild guess.' He shrugged at Martin. 

'It's perfect.' 

'Elevated the act of pouring one liquid into another to an art form, did I?' There was a time when they would have teased like this, though it was the briefest of instances. Something about cows came to mind. 

'You know what I mean.' 

He actually did. Making tea could be a finickity little thing. Martin drank his like he considered himself duty bound to cultivate it, like it was a precursor to being allowed to keep his postcode, his passport. He would only let the teabag give the briefest of kisses to the hot water and drown the results in generous helpings of milk, almost completely defying the purpose of introducing tea leaves into the mixture in the first place. It was the kind of thing you learn about someone when holed up in a safehouse in Scotland, indefinitely. 

'I need you to leave.' Jon blurted, timing impeccable as always. He managed to startle Martin, a second time round, into almost splashing the hot liquid down his own chest. 'These records aren't accessible to the public. You are trespassing.' 

'I don't have to. I checked your policies. Academia has access to them and some of these happen to be relevant to my research. I have a masters in parapsychology, you know.' 

'No you don't.' Jon contradicted him, serenely.

Martin's eyes flashed, a mixture of annoyance and vindication. 

'So are we dropping the act then, _Mr Sims_?' He huffed.

'How many did you listen to? Can you still tell?' Jon demanded, fixing his gaze on a tape recorder at random, trying to judge the contents based solely on its looks. Is that the voice of the thing that is definitely not Sasha, immortalised? The self eulogy of Tim Stoker, preserved in amber? The last remnants of Peter Lukas? Or is that the recorded violence of a statement? 'They all seemed to blur together after a while, becoming patterns of the same horror, in varying shades of messed up.' 

Martin's posture stiffened.

'Enough to learn that I used to work here.' Out loud he said. 'Research assistant at first. Mostly monster bait towards the end.' 

Jon snorted at that, an undignified, ugly sound, one that only Martin could coax out of him. Must he still be able to get under the Archivist's skin with such efficiency? If you subscribe to the theory that we are but a collection of our experiences, than the present Martin Blackwood was supposed to be a complete stranger. But practice strived to disprove this theory with an elemental force. Jon's entire self seemed to recognise this version of Martin like he was a neighbourhood he lived in during his youth or a scent from long before. The slight shifts and changes only emphasising the underlying familiarity. He slipped into Martin's presence with ease, basking in it like it was homecoming.

'So how come you are you still here?' He sighed. 

'Because.' Martin gestured about himself in a sudden fit of agitation, almost covering everything in tea. Jon watched as he calmed himself in that very Martin way of his, like there was something inappropriate about airing those, arguably very valid, emotions of his. Like he was only allowed to have one default mood of even temperedness, as if anything else coming from him would be an imposition. It reminded him painfully of a younger Martin, the one who'd meekly offer Jon tea even after the Archivist hurled insults at his work ethic. In fact, the whole scene reminded him of the Lonely a bit. Even the way Martin cradled the teacup in front of himself, hiding behind the steam for a minute. That's where Jon once found him. He went to retrieve Martin from the fog. 

For the first time ever, he felt regret. His Martin had been through too much to shy away from claiming his place in the world. But then, he reminded himself that the root of the problem was that this Martin wasn't his. That he didn't have the right to claim the intimacy of his more extreme emotions.

'There are literal monsters out there' the words tore up from Martin painfully. 'and I somehow _forgot_ that. Imagine if one of them was out there to get me. I wouldn't have the first clue what to do.' 

Once again, the look he offered to Jon had a quality of pleading. _Disperse this hallucination, this miasmic air. Tell me I'm a moron for still believing in fairy tales._

So Jon tried.

'Half of the statements are delirious ramblings of people who _think_ they've seen something, Martin.' 

It was a rare treat these days, curling his lips around that name he didn't have the reason to speak anymore. He said it with feel, forged it into a sort of an anchor. A hypnotist, coaxing you back to the surface, _on the count of ten_.

'Sure, yes, of course.' Martin was suddenly angered again. He didn't seem to like being handled or he was flailing wildly between carving calming and confrontation. It was a strange place to be, thrown off the grid and down the rabbit hole and he managed it as best as he could. Which wasn't too well, but doubting one's own perception was an ancient, powerful fear. 'But how do you explain the tapes of the Prentiss creature? Or the way that the thing that calls himself Michael distorts the sounds? I know that I'm not listening to doctored audio, Jon. These are bloody tapes!' 

And even through the wave of anger, hearing his name from Martin again affected him like a punch to the gut. There was something about the way he enunciated it, speaking it like no one ever would. It almost made you believe that names did have powers. At this point in time, he wouldn't have been surprised if that was a very literal truth.

They have been here before. Him playing the sceptic, despite believing deep down. Martin, playing the devil's advocate, actually hoping that it will all turn out to be a nightmare, some kind twisted joke. Almost affronted by being right. It was a slow, painful reconstruction of who they were. Lay the bones. Add a cross stitching of muscles, of skin. Build two people, two bleeding hearts from scratch. 

'But that's what you've learned. Not the reason why.'

Martin frowned again, into his teacup, up to Jon. The wavering look of so many statement givers before him. A man bracing himself to speak something unspeakable. 

'There seems to be a piece of me trapped in these Archives.' He said, slowly, a drop of poet in his words like a drop of tea in his hot milk. 

Jon, essentially, _is_ the Archives. His fingers leave sharp and painful papercuts. Tape recorder whirrs in the place in his chest where a beating heart should be. Where others hunger for purpose, meaning, love he yearns for feelings of terror, grief and desperation. If Martin is still bound to this place, he doesn't know how can he ever set him free. 

'When I listen to the tapes, I sound so different, this other me.' Martin continued, appearing frustrated, hands left clutching for words his lips refused to speak. 'So self assured, so full of passion. Not me though.'

Jon wanted to tell him that there was no difference. Martin had always been the bravest of them all, arriving on the waves of deceit, lying in the face of all knowing eldritch horrors but baring his chest all the same, laying his heart open for all the monsters to see. And not a thing had changed. 

'It makes you wonder,' Martin continued, setting his cup aside. He sat it on top of a filing cabinet with care. 'what gave him such a sense of purpose.'

He braced himself against the drawers for a minute, before turning to face Jon. 

'He left me with feelings of such loss, so much... longing.'

There were tapes everywhere, so many of them lying about. _How many did he listen to?_

'I'd really like to get to know him better.'

Martin bridged the distance between them. His arm lifted with a hesitant staccato. 

'I think I'd like to get him back.'

His fingers brushed against Jon's face and…

Suddenly, Martin was kissing him and Jon couldn't trace the events between simply standing near him by the cabinets and being pushed into the wall, into Martin's larger frame. At first, he stayed rigid, limbs cast in stone by the shock of it all, so Martin began to pull away. But at that his discipline, a fragile thing, fell away from Jon with a silverine shatter. Suddenly, he was kissing Martin back, fisting the other man's sweater desperately, while Martin held him so gently, he began to suspect it was him who cracked just now with the far ringing smashing sounds. He imagined himself bleeding mercury from the fault lines on his skin, becoming reflecting, transparent in the process. Collecting himself, he pulled away, but Martin's hands tightened around him, stopping him from stepping too far. Not that he had anywhere to escape, sandwiched so perfectly between him and the wall. He was looking at Jon, slightly cross eyed from being so close. Gaze caressing Jon's face, he first contemplated his messy, gaying hair, his skin, scarred by time and various monsters and the white tissue on Jon's neck where a blade once left a bloodthirsty kiss. From there his eyes raked back up to Jon's lips. Martin instinctively licked his own a little, tasting Jon over there and sought out the Archivist's eyes. One tentative hand abandoned Jon's hip, in favour of brushing against his hair, his temple.

'Why can't I remember you?' Martin growled, sounding ever so disappointed.

Jon allowed his eyes to flutter closed, inhaling Martin's presence, his touch. It supposed to last him for the rest of times, this feeble moment. It was never going to be enough. But nothing would satiate him anyway. Monsters are greedy like that. 

'I am the avatar of the Eye.' In another momentary slip of self control his nuzzled his nose against Martin's cheek, lips lightly teasing his mouth. 'I can pull knowledge from you and pull and pull and pull until you've nothing left to give.' 

That is it, Jon thought, bracing for the moment when he's being pushed away in disgust. But instead Martin's hand hooked behind his neck and he pressed their foreheads together firmly like he wanted to erase all boundaries between his and Jon's mind, like he was trying to retrieve those memories with sheer force alone. It was his turn to scrunch his eyes shut, while Jon looked in disbelief, drinking in Martin's expression of naked exasperation.

'Is this what you would want?' Martin asked, sounding grief stricken. 'Given the opportunity, would you want to forget?' 

_Think of the haunting words of something that wasn't Sasha, spoken with Sasha's mouth. The last expression on Tim's face before everything went white and hot. Think of still occasionally waking to the sensation of the Buried pressing down on you. Of the image of Melanie, white bandage wrapped around where her eyes should be_. Would he? 

_Think of a small house in the mountains, a narrow couch to share. Of bashful, tentative poetry. Of the potent feeling in the back of your atriums because someone has thought of you. Think of a shrine, made of tape recorders and sheer desperation._

Would he?

'No.' He admitted. 'But it is what I want for you.' 

A sense of purpose alright. One that comes with PTSD and an expiration date on your life.

'Damn it, Jonathan Sims, this isn't about what you want.' Martin pulled away with a wet laughter, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands violently. 'I get that it's probably convenient way to have gotten rid of an annoying office crush, but…' 

'Martin!' 

He dived in for another kiss which was far too desperate. It was meant to say everything that he was so inept in speaking out loud, but instead he ended up simply smashing their lips together, his hands raking over Martin's face, his body and he couldn't remember ever kissing anybody like this before. 

'I came for you.' He reminded the man, when he came up for air. 'When you were lost, I came to find you.' 

'You would have done it for any of us. You got Daisy back.' Because he heard that tape too, because of course he did.

'I wanted to run away with you. You didn't believe me back than, but I really meant it.' 

'But not anymore.' 

'Martin.'

His tentative lips were answered by hungry ones, Martin responding to him in a way that was beyond the realms of rationality. Hardly remembering Jon, but still drawn to him on an instinctive level. Yet he was painfully aware, that Martin was slipping away from him, faster than sand when you try to hold it in your wrist. 

_Just do it already_. Part of him was tugging on his conscious. _Take those memories again, make all this pain end._

But the thought of releasing Martin with this lingering sense of misplaced loss, like a derelict grief mistakenly assigned for him was unbearable. He needed to make him understand before he took it all away again. 

'How many times?' Martin demanded.

 _Oh, not this line of questioning, please_.

'Hmmm?' He allowed his focus to wander, along with his restraint, lips nibbling the corner of Martin's mouth. 

'How many times did you… pull the memories from me so far? Martin's grasp on him gently tightened to keep him grounded and he exhaled against the man's lips. 

'Four. First I took your everything related to the Magnus Archives. Then I simply kept making you forget that you ever came back.' 

'And how many more times until you wrap your stubborn head around the fact that I won't back down?' 

In all fairness, it's not an exact science, this process. There are too many variables to balance the equation. Take away the first day on the job and you are still left with the remnants of nerves from the day of the interview. Trim a bit further back and you still have the excitement of sending a CV for a job posting. Having taken away the terror of Jane Prentiss, you still need to deal with the memories of months of now inexplicable unease upon coming back to an unchanged flat. Take away the events that happened in the Archives and you still have an endless stock of memories of the Archives itself - winding halls and mostly empty cubicles and noisy halogen bulbs and mugs upon mugs of tea. And the memories regarding Jon himself. All technicolor. Surround sound. Not to mention the olfactory aspects. The effect of complex bodily chemicals. He never did figure where to even begin. 

How much could he take before scraping out something fundamental too? How many times was he prepared to carve his bleeding heart out, lay it below the heel of his shoe, then push firmly down? 

'I can't see any other way of keeping you safe.'

Not one that would involve staying together, anyway.

'You know more than anyone that there is no such thing as safe. Ignorant? Maybe. Some are definitely oblivious. But no one is _safe_.' Argued Martin, persistent with his fond exasperation. He reached out, cupping Jon's cheeks, drawing him in for another kiss before stopping just shy of contact. There were ripples of raw need, tectonic shifts of want disturbing his features, but he resisted. 'I am lost _now_ , Jon.' 

'You don't know, if this is what you really want.' Jon's breathing became hard, laboured. 'You don't have the means.' 

'So help me remember.' Martin half pleaded, half ordered.

And he was weak. Greedy. And so, so tired. 

He flushed his hands against Martin's temples. The reverse process was easy, effortless like filling an empty container. It felt almost like nothing. He wouldn't have know that it worked if it wasn't for the hapless little _'Ah'_ sound Martin emitted between his hands as his brows wrinkled in something akin to pain. 

'Martin?' He called out, panic rising in him like bile. 

He expected something grand and awful to happen. _You don't look back, you never supposed to look back_. It drummed in Jon's head. He'd read the classics, because he'd read everything once. He knew well that in order to pull someone out of the underworld, you musn't look back. It's the price you pay. You can only save a life if you are not saving it for yourself. Eurydice lives only if you keep your distance. 

But, of course, that's easier said than done.

As for Martin, he wouldn't have blamed him. Having been given the terror and the pain back, he wouldn't have been surprised if the man wanted to turn around and run. Jon studied his face, trying to divine the future from the way his eyes moved behind his closed lids. He was waiting for the appearance of a stray tear, a hardening of the lines around his mouth as reality sunk in. And then Martin opened his eyes and he was surprised to see that the man in front of him was somehow more than before. There was something new behind his gaze, where he was lacking before. 

'God, Jon.' Martin's laugh was a little wet, a little breathless and there was a sublime heaviness to the way it rattled in his chest. 'It's so good to see you again.'

It felt like an epiphany. Not every story ends like the classics, thought Jon, as Martin buried his face in the nook where his neck met his shoulder. Weighed down by equal measure of relief and grief, surely. Their story hasn't been a nice, straightforward little tragedy. He'd never been the psychopomp, the ferryman of hell. Somewhere, along the line, he became the Eurydice of his own tale.

'Martin…' He allowed one scarred hand to rhythmically caress the soft down on the back of Martin's neck. He stood, contemplating the unique twists of their own bitter ending. How the ones marked by the underworld can never really escape it. They might fight their way out of a weird coma, of semi death, of a coffin filled with the Buried. But they will always carry a small patch of it within. 

'Thank you, Jon.' Martin shuddered against his collarbone and he scrunched his eyes closed in a fit of phantom pain of regret.

 _He made a noise, he broke the spell, he caused the other to look back_. 

'Please, don't…' He keened, but Martin, _his_ wonderful, selfless Martin, interrupted.

'No, I mean it. Thank you for letting me back in.'

No, thought Jon, there's no way out of the underworld. He wasn't naive enough to believe that. But for every other retelling of the same old story, the Orpheus have found a way of coming back past Lethe. He ferried down oblivion. 

'No. Thank you.'

For good. 

'For coming back for me.'

To stay.


End file.
